For many years, BaFin has published complaints statistics in its annual report classified by insurance undertaking and class. The Higher Administrative Court in Berlin (Oberverwaltungsgericht – OVG) issued a ruling on 25 July 1995 (case ref.: OVG 8 B 16/94) ordering the Federal Insurance Supervisory Office (Bundesaufsichtsamt für das Versicherungswesen – BAV), one of BaFin's predecessors, to include this information.

The complaints statistics list how many complaints BaFin processed in full in 2016 for Insurance Supervision.

The statistics do not take into account whether the complaints processed are justified, and hence are not indicative of the quality of insurance business.

In order to provide an indicator of the volume of insurance business, the number of complaints that BaFin processed in full in 2016 is compared with the number of policies in the respective insurance class as at 31 December 2015. The individual undertakings report their existing business data. The information on existing business puts those insurers that recorded strong growth in the reporting period, often newly established undertakings, at a disadvantage because the new business written in the course of the year giving rise to the complaints is not adequately accounted for in the complaints statistics.

In the life insurance class, the existing business figure specified for group insurance relates to the number of insurance contracts. Existing health insurance business is based on the number of natural persons with health insurance contracts, rather than the number of insured persons under each premium scale, which is usually higher. As in the past, these figures are not yet entirely reliable.

The information on property and casualty insurance figures relates to insured risks. The existing business figure increases if undertakings agree group policies with large numbers of insured persons. Due to the limited disclosure requirements (section 51 (4) no. 1 sentence 4 of the Regulation on German Insurance Accounting (Verordnung über die Rechnungslegung von Versicherungsunternehmen), only the existing business figures for insurers whose gross premiums earned in 2015 exceeded €10 million in the respective insurance classes or types can be included. The tables give no information on existing business (n.a.) for undertakings below the limit in the individual insurance classes.

The statistics do not include insurance undertakings operating within one of the classes listed that have not been the subject of complaints in the year under review.

As undertakings domiciled in other countries in the European Economic Area (EEA) were not required to submit reports to BaFin, no data is given for the existing business of these insurers. The number of complaints is included in order to present a more complete picture.